Election Immediacy

[Jonathan Buhacoff]

Proposal:

After an election has been conducted, the votes have been counted, and the results have been certified, the results are effective immediately.

If a law is intended to not take effect immediately after approval but on a future date or upon other conditions, the law must state this explicitly.

If an election is for a position in any branch of government, the result is effective immediately and the newly elected official must immediately take the oath of office and assume the duties and responsibilities for which they were elected.

If any natural disaster or attack by an enemy or other emergency occurs after the election results have been certified and after the newly elected official has taken the oath of office, the newly elected official has already assumed the duties and responsibilities and shall direct the response.

If an emergency occurs before the newly elected official has taken the oath of office, or before the election results have been certified, or before the votes have been counted, the outgoing official has a duty to respond in such a way as to create the conditions to facilitate the completion of the election and the transition to the newly elected official.

If, due to an emergency or any other reason, there is a delay in counting votes or certifying the results, the outgoing executive has only two duties and responsibilities to defend the country, or state, or region, or locality, and to facilitate the transfer of power to the next elected executive. If the outgoing executive takes any other actions that even appear to be motivated by delaying the peaceful transfer of power to the next elected official, the legislature may impeach the executive for failing in their transfer of power duties, and declare the next person in the chain of succession to be the acting executive with the same two duties and responsibilities.

Intent:

To eliminate so-called “lame duck” periods where an outgoing official is still responsible after the people have already elected the new official.

On the certification day, the outgoing official is in charge until the newly elected official has taken the oath of office. The newly elected official is in charge from the moment the oath of office is complete. This provides clarity as to who is in charge in the event of an emergency. When recounting the dates in office, both outgoing and incoming official shall count the certification day as a day that they were in office, because both of them were in charge for part of the day and switched upon completion of the oath of office.

Discussion:

Whatever last-day actions the outbound official is going to do, they need to do before the votes are counted and certified. This means the outgoing official cannot take any actions specifically hindering the next official because they don’t know who it will be.

It also means that an executive can’t wait until after the election and before the transfer of power to take any actions they feel would be unpopular — whatever they’re going to do it needs to be before the election.

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